


I never asked for company (but I'm not asking you to leave)

by Ithika



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Bounty Hunting, F/M, Gen, Some kind of canon adjacent au, eventually there will be smooches, shootout, tbh I wrote this for myself so I hope y'all like it too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 16:30:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18742786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ithika/pseuds/Ithika
Summary: Bounty hunting: It's a hell of a way to make a living. Travel the country, see the sights, give rotten folk their just deserts- and the pay ain't half bad, either. Of course, when another bounty hunter shows up at your latest job, that's less than ideal.





	I never asked for company (but I'm not asking you to leave)

**Author's Note:**

> Gigantic thank yous to [Ghost](https://archiveofourown.com/users/ghostmateria/profile), [Rebeccavis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebeccavis/profile) and [Kara](https://instagram.com/getpaid_getshot?utm_source=ig_profile_share&igshid=1jrg01fxad6qy) for proof reading this for me!

From where you crouch behind a decrepit stable, the gunfire is so loud you can scarcely think. And the shots are getting closer.

Heart hammering wildly in your chest, you turn to peek out from behind your cover. Craning your neck, you contort yourself in an effort to remain hidden from the shooter in the tower and gain a bearing.

 _One, two,_ you mouth the words, counting the Ambarados who still draw breath. _Three--_ **_“Shit!_ **” You yelp - the sound higher-pitched than you'd like- as your hat is shot clean from your head.

No matter. The hat will keep. You take a steadying breath and crouch harder against the mute timber, counting your bullets. The men on the battlement jeer something at you, but between the gunfire and the ringing in your ears from the nearness of those shots, you can't make it out.

You don't think you're missing out on much.

A bullet lodges itself between two weakened boards of timber with a startling thud. Heart in your mouth, you hunker down further. The gunfire continues, and you begin to feel awfully like a rat in a trap.

The sheriff had warned you these boys were trouble, but as one of the few female bounty hunters working the area (you didn't like to say “only,” that felt equal parts arrogant and sad), you tended to disregard such well-intentioned underestimations as a matter of course. Perhaps this time that had been a mistake.

It wasn't so much that the Ambarado gang were anything special, of course. The money was good, and the posting reading ‘dead or alive’ made the whole business that much simpler. That they were holed up in a rotting fort perhaps ought to have given you more pause.

You creep to the opposite end of the stable, keeping yourself low and hunched, cattleman raised and head ducked. From this end, a fallen joist blocks your view of your mark, one Joseph Kelly, but offers you more cover, and at this point that seems entirely worth the trade-off. You can’t see Kelly, but you keep an eye on his gangmates as you slowly holster your revolver.

Carefully, hands steady as a surgeon's, you swing the Springfield from your back and raise its sight to your eye. Those morons are still shooting at the section of stable you'd last emerged from. _Idiots_.

It's only now, with the benefit of the scope, that you see the beer and whisky bottles strewn about the outlawed men. Heat rises to your cheeks. Drunk? You'd managed to get yourself pinned down in a firefight by a pack of _drunks?!_

As you line the sight up with the nearest man's skull, you breathe a silent prayer of thanks as you squeeze the trigger. You haven't ever worked with a partner, but lord knows you'd never live this down if you did.

You drop back into cover as the bandit falls from the battlement with a crunching thud. Bullets rain anew on your end of the shed as you reload, but you freeze as the crack of a rifle sounds from the fort's entry behind and to the right of you.

The shot is followed by a crash as one of the Ambarados falls to the ground below, his death not by your hand. The curse that leaves your lips is vicious as you realise; you must have missed a second posting of the bounty in your hurry to leave Rhodes.

 _Fucking hell. I am not about to be rescued by some cowboy._ “These boys are mine, partner,” you yell behind you, reverting to your cattleman as you shoot from better cover.

“That so?” A male voice, hale and almost cheerful, carries easily over the gunfire. “Your name written on 'em?”

You can't help but smirk at his cheek as another Ambarado crumples - this time to one of _your_ bullets. Their leader and his remaining compatriot retreat inside the tower, out of sight, and you crouch into your cover once again.

“I've already done most of the work.”

You can hear the other bounty hunter scoff at that, and you roll your eyes, sliding bullets into the empty chambers of your six-iron.

“Seems t’ me like they had you pinned down when I got here.”

“Hardly!”

“And miss, these boys is _drunk_.”

That one isn't so easy to argue with. “Hell, we're all drunk, mister.” Switching to your Springfield again, you make your way back carefully to the other end of the stable, glancing back in the direction of your fellow bounty hunter's voice as you do.

He's a big, sturdy-looking fellow, you notice. Crouching behind a crate, a very fine rolling block rifle at the ready, he manages somehow to look both at his ease and unaccountably deadly all at once.

Your heart sinks, and you hope it doesn't register on your face. It seemed very unlikely, looking at him, that you'd be able to defend your score from him, if he was of a mind to take it. You'd been hoping he'd turn out to be a weedy little thing, like the last bounty hunter who'd thought to take credit for your work.

He could have at least been green, but he looked for all the world like he'd been chasing bounties all his life. You almost sigh before you stop yourself, glancing back at the tower before eyeing him warily. There is none of your caution reflected in his clear, unworried eyes. It’s something else you see there that urges you to speak not with bald aggression, but something dangerously like hope.

This is not your first bounty; you’ve been hunting heads like this for nigh on two years now, and it is far from the first time you’ve crossed paths with a man of a mind to turn in the same unfortunate degenerate as you. It was always the same: surprise; derision; dismissal.

But this one looked at you as though you were an equal, not some girl out of her depth. Neither was there so much as a glimmer of disbelief, of surprised amusement; you’ve seen all these and more so often that his cool appraisal- as though you were any other bounty hunter he might meet on the road- was near as thrilling as the gunfight that has for the moment fallen quiet.

“Let's split it.” You keep your voice steady, hoping that no trace of your enthusiasm for his indifference betrayed itself in your speech.

He doesn't answer, instead looking from you back into the courtyard of the fort, perhaps counting the bodies that now lay there. You continue, voice insistent and words quick. “It's one-hundred twenty for Kelly if we can take him alive. Sixty dollars apiece ain't nothing to sniff at.”

He still says nothing, his eyes studying the now-quiet guardhouse a moment before they turn back to you. His expression is hard to read, but at least you still see no open dismissal in those calm blue eyes.

“Fifty if we ride him in dead. Better 'n you can usually make from a cold one.” You force your mouth shut, looking back to the guardhouse now. At least Kelly and his associate have nowhere left to run while you hash this out.

"Sure.” His rough voice is low and quiet, but it startles you all the same; despite his demeanor, you hadn't expected him to _agree_.

The bounty hunter catches you gawping at him in surprise when he turns back to you, and if he's amused by the way you force the disbelief from your face, it doesn't show on his. He inclines his head to the bodies in the yard. “Looks like you're a crack shot with that rifle.”

You raise your chin just slightly, quirking a brow at the man. “I ain't bad.”

Pushing his hat a little further onto his head, the man draws his revolvers. “Right. You cover me--”

“Oh _hell_ no mister, I ain't sittin’ here while you run up there an’ claim that bounty on your own! You think I was born yesterday?”

Surprising you once more, he turns to you with a raised eyebrow. “I didn't say that. Come on, I'll go first. I weren't expectin’ you to stay behind.” He clicks his tongue as he cocks both revolvers, glancing at you with a gleam in his eye. “Besides, I don't want no wild woman with a rifle shootin’ me once I got old Eight-fingered Joe in there trussed up on my shoulder.”

With that, he makes a run for the stairs that lead to the guard house. As you follow, firing warning shots at every movement from above, you wonder if having a partner for hunting bounties might not be so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into the land of 2nd person fiction, and I'll be honest, I intended to jump straight into fluff but I have landed here, in the far more self-indulgent land of a slow-burn buddy... Cowboy... Adventure. Who knows what will happen? 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you liked what you found. If you feel like commenting, I'd very much appreciate it!


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